Frequency and Spatial Domains Adaptive-based Enhancement Technique for Thermal Infrared Images

Debasis Chaudhuri; S. Porwal

doi:10.14429/dsj.64.6873

Debasis Chaudhuri DRDO Integration Centre, Panagarh, West Bengal
S. Porwal Defence Electronics Applications Laboratory, Dehradun

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.6873

Keywords: Enhancement, thermal IR image, Gaussian filter, homomorphic filter

Abstract

Low contrast and noisy image limits the amount of information conveyed to the user. With the proliferation of digital imagery and computer interface between man-and-machine, it is now viable to consider digital enhancement in the image before presenting it to the user, thus increasing the information throughput. With better contrast, target detection and discrimination can be improved. The paper presents a sequence of filtering operations in frequency and spatial domains to improve the quality of the thermal infrared (IR) images. Basically, two filters – homomorphic filter followed by adaptive Gaussian filter are applied to improve the quality of the thermal IR images. We have systematically evaluated the algorithm on a variety of images and carefully compared it with the techniques presented in the literature. We performed an evaluation of three filter banks such as homomorphic, Gaussian 5×5 and the proposed method, and we have seen that the proposed method yields optimal PSNR for all the thermal images. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is efficient for enhancement of thermal IR images.

Defence Science Journal, Vol. 64, No. 5, September 2014, pp.451-457, DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/dsj.64.6873

Author Biographies

Debasis Chaudhuri, DRDO Integration Centre, Panagarh, West Bengal

Dr D. Chaudhuri received his MSc (Applied Mathematics) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, in 1987, and PhD from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, in 1994. Currently working as a Scientist at DIC, Panagarh, India. He has published over 48 papers in international journals and conferences. He is a fellow of IETE. His research interests include: Image processing, pattern recognition, computer vision, remote sensing, and target detection from satellite imagery.

S. Porwal, Defence Electronics Applications Laboratory, Dehradun

Mr S. Porwal received the BE (Comp. Sci. & Eng.) from GB Pant Engineering College, Uttaranchal, in 1996 and MTech (Comp. & Infor. Technol.) from IIT Kharagpur, in 2005. He is currently working as senior scientist at the Image Analysis Centre, DEAL, Dehradun, India. His research interests are GIS, image processing, three-dimensional modelling and visualisation, computer vision, video processing, software design and web applications.